Washington, DC (BN24) – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, could now be sentenced to death at Guantanamo Bay after a U.S. appeals court on Friday threw out a plea deal that would have spared his life.
Mohammed, once regarded as Osama bin Laden’s most trusted lieutenant, was captured in Pakistan by the CIA in 2003. After enduring years in secret “black site” prisons—where he was subjected to torture and repeated waterboarding—he was transferred to the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in September 2006.
He and two alleged accomplices—Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi—had struck an agreement with prosecutors last summer, offering to plead guilty in exchange for life sentences. That deal would have allowed them to avoid execution and remain imprisoned on the U.S. naval base in Cuba for the rest of their lives.
The arrangement, finalized on July 31, quickly ignited outrage among relatives of the nearly 3,000 people murdered in the attacks. Many families condemned the deal as a betrayal of justice after more than two decades of waiting to see the architects of 9/11 stand trial.
On Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the plea deal, siding with the Pentagon’s argument that the defense secretary himself must sign off on any resolution that would remove the possibility of a death sentence in cases of such historic gravity.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had intervened last year, filing a motion that underscored the unprecedented scope of the attacks and argued he alone should have the final authority over plea agreements that would spare the defendants’ lives.
“Secretary Austin acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,” wrote Judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao in their decision.
The ruling means that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could still be sentenced to death if convicted at trial, ending a yearslong effort to negotiate a resolution that would avoid execution.
Congressional leaders immediately welcomed the court’s decision. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the now-defunct plea deal “a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice.”
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s weakness in the face of sworn enemies of the American people apparently knows no bounds,” McConnell said in a statement. “The only thing worse than negotiating with terrorists is negotiating with them after they are in custody.”
Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on March 1, 2003, in a joint operation by the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. Walid bin Attash was seized weeks later in Karachi.
For more than three years after their capture, the men were held in a series of clandestine CIA facilities where interrogators subjected them to harsh treatment that would later fuel legal challenges to their prosecution. According to U.S. government documents, Mohammed alone was waterboarded 183 times—torture that caused lasting physical and psychological trauma.
The attacks Mohammed is accused of orchestrating remain the deadliest terrorist act on U.S. soil. On September 11, 2001, two hijacked planes slammed into the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center, killing 2,753 people. A third aircraft struck the Pentagon, while a fourth crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.
In the aftermath, President George W. Bush launched the War on Terror, sending American forces into Afghanistan to hunt down al-Qaeda operatives. Years later, on May 1, 2011, U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in a covert operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan—a mission hailed as justice for the attacks Mohammed allegedly planned.
Now, nearly 23 years after the day that transformed American history, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed faces the possibility that his own fate will be decided not by negotiation but in the courtroom. Prosecutors are preparing to proceed toward trial at the military commission in Guantanamo Bay, where the death penalty will once again be on the table.
thesun.co.uk
